


The Lives of Darryl McAllister

by theunwillingheart



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, Meta, more of a YW fanfic with a cameo than a true crossover, perfect wizard babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 08:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11482332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunwillingheart/pseuds/theunwillingheart
Summary: Wizard study party!Wait, who invited Carmela?Guys…Spoilers for Book 9 of Young Wizards, takes place between Books 9 and 10.  Familiarity with Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci novels is not necessary, but it will make certain parts of this funnier.





	The Lives of Darryl McAllister

**Author's Note:**

> A word on Darryl—I tried to write him to be faithful to the New Millennium Edition version, where he remains autistic, because I think that’s the better version of his character. That being said, I am not an expert on autism. So if I accidentally misstep here in any way, I sincerely apologize. I tried to do a good job.
> 
> Disclaimer: I _do_ like to dabble in the affairs of what’s not mine. Young Wizards and Chrestomanci are Diane Duane’s and Dianna Wynne Jones’, respectively.

In a small living room in Long Island’s Nassau County, three junior wizards lounged in various states of personal entropy, each working on his or her own separate nightmare.

Nita Callahan was kneeling in front of the coffee table, working on what at first glance might have seemed to be a timeline project for a history class on a large sheet of draft paper.  But most high school timeline assignments weren’t divided into sections like _Past_ , _Almost Was the Past_ , _Present_ , _Present Parallels_ , _Potentialities_ , _Eventualities_ , and _New Millennium Edition_.  Most timelines didn’t contain nearly as many branches and closed loops, either.  Every so often, she would mutter irately to herself along the lines of “ _was to have_ _been_ annihilated?” or “wait, so we _will have gone_ there?” or “oh, since when did we get cellphones?” and groan, erasing large areas of her work and starting again.

Meanwhile, her wizard partner and boyfriend, Kit Rodriguez, was sitting on the couch and scribbling away in the workbook pages of a textbook-sized, leather-bound tome.  Anyone watching him might have thought that he was working on several long-form essay questions, complete with diagrams.  Further inspection, however, would have revealed that these particular “essays” were being written in a graceful, cursive script resembling Arabic, that the diagrams were composed of some rather strange geometries, and that the entire composition seemed to hum with the promise of power.  Kit, for his part, was humming a repetitive melody rather aggressively and scowling with concentration.

As for Nita’s sister, Dairine Callahan, she was sprawled on the floor on her stomach, her laptop open in front of her.  To the casual observer, she may have resembled a fourteen-year-old girl planning to blow up the sun.  She was.

“I’m going to blow up the entire sun,” Dairine fumed, mashing Spot’s keyboard angrily.  “Thahit, too.  Just… everything can _grenfelzing_ go nova; I don’t care.”

“Dari,” Nita said severely, snapping her fingers sharply in a way that was reminiscent of their late mother.  “ _Language_.”

Dairine swallowed.  “Oh sure,” she said haughtily, recovering immediately.  “You’re too old to even know what _grenfelzing_ _is_!”

“Uhh…” Nita looked uncertain.  Kit looked at her with a “message incoming” expression.  “Like… emm…fo…zing?  But with… chocolate?”  She looked back at Kit with a “if you’re pulling my leg, it will end badly for you” expression.

“Ha!  And I bet you don’t know what _emmfozing_ is, either!”

Both Nita and Kit turned toward Dairine with perfectly coordinated intimidating stares.

Dairine was clearly not impressed.  “You’re not going to bluff this one out of me,” she gloated.

The three-way stand-off was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing.

“I’ll get that,” sighed Nita, standing up.  “Hopefully whoever’s arrived will be of some help.”

She came back with a tall, gangly-looking boy, black-haired and black-clad.  “Greetings, Cousins!” he said, in a pronounced south-Dublin drawl.  “Now the real party can begin at last!”

He was met by dry looks from his colleagues.  “Nice to see you too, Ronan,” said Kit, eventually.  “Got a project to work on?”

Ronan huffed.  “You Americans are no fun,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “Yeah, I guess I could work on some of the simulation stuff.  It’s good to do debugging in an area that isn’t completely choked with overlays.”  He sat down on the floor, his back to the wall, and pulled a blue, glowing word construct from his pocket.  Draping it delicately on the carpet in front of him, he got to work adjusting connections and tweaking the symbols.  “Let me know if there’s anything in particular I can help with.”  The rest of them nodded and continued working.

They were interrupted by the sound of Nita growling in annoyance.  “I give up!” she gritted out, throwing her pencil down and putting her head down on her arms.  “This is never going to come together!”

“Hey,” said Kit, moving to her side, “I know that this visionary stuff can be a real pain…”

Nita groaned.  “That’s an _understatement_ , Kit!  But maybe you can help me out here; you’re the history buff…”  She pushed her time-tangle toward him.  “Can you make any sense of this?”

Kit frowned as he struggled to take in the jumble of events, time paradoxes, and prophecies.  “Well…” he said carefully, “What are you trying to do, exactly?”

“It’s an assignment from Tom,” Nita said, “to help me piece together the context for my visions.  I’m supposed to map out what I’ve been seeing against what has happened, and what would have happened, and whatever”—she waved one hand distractedly—“which should be simple, right?  Just plot out everything that happened to me since taking the Oath!  But when you sit down and actually _do it_ ”—she made a frustrated noise—“it’s a total mess!  And on top of what I’ve physically experienced, my visions can be fuzzy on temporal details at best, completely unmoored from any concept of sequential time at worst!  This is _so_ not worth it!”

“Alright, calm down,” said Kit, patting her shoulder awkwardly.  “Uhh… maybe take a break from that for a while.  Do you have anything else you can work on?”

At this, Nita growled again.  “And that’s another problem,” she said, “ _yes_ , I _do_ have something else to work on—a whole lot of something else.  As it turns out, this total headache is just one item on a ridiculously long list of stuff that Tom gave me the other day…”  She pulled out a sheet of paper, which was covered with Tom’s neat, spidery handwriting.

Kit scanned the list while Nita continued to rant.  “Of course, this is mostly my fault,” she groused.  “I just had to keep pestering Tom for more exercises to help me to get a handle on my ‘gift’.  So finally he relented, and, in his usual fashion, he dumped way too much crap on me!  I have no idea where to start with most of this!  And I suspect that he put at least some stuff on there purely to mess with me.  Like, I know that the visionary discipline can be a bit on the esoteric side, but… just… look at it!”  And she threw herself backwards to lie down on the living room floor.

By this point, both Dairine and Ronan had taken an interest, and each had moved behind Kit to take a look at the list.  At the top, it said “Visionary Homework Assignments for Nita :)”.  Underneath, the list crowded the entire sheet of paper in multiple columns.  It started out reasonably enough:

  1. Breathing exercises (at least 15 minutes per day)
  2. Daily recitation of the Affirmation/ Meditation/ Knowledge of the Charge
  3. Regularly maintained dream diary
  4. More research (read up on Nonspecific Scryings, if you haven’t already)
  5. Drafting a timeline of your wizardly career, incorporating dreams



But further down, past #10 or so, things started to get more dicey and strange.

  1. Flicker subtly in and out of existence
  2. Oscillate between two planes at a frequency of 180Hz



Ronan started to crack up.  “Wait, wait,” he said, eyes wide, “‘Number 89: Sing with all the voices of the mountain’?”  He laughed harder.  “‘Number 90: Paint with all the colors of the wind’?  Nita, even _I_ know that that’s a Disney reference!”  He doubled over with hilarity and started to pound the table, shaking his head. 

Nita glared at him.  “Okay, so maybe I didn’t make it that far down!”

“Oh no,” said Dairine.  Kit glanced at her questioningly.  She snickered and pointed to the bottom of the list.  There, in writing gone shaky either from hand-cramping or from the writer being unable to control his maniacal giggling, was written, without explanation or apology:

  1. Cow tipping



Kit and Dairine both finally lost it.  Nita grabbed the list back from Kit and read the last items.

“Is it just me,” said Kit, in between gasps of laughter, “or do wizards’ senses of humor get weirder the higher they get promoted?”

“Oh, it’s not just you,” said Nita, with an uncharacteristically murderous gleam in her eye.  “And I’m starting to suspect that that fact has a little something to do with Senior wizards’ tendencies toward shorter lifespans…”

Just then, the doorbell rang again.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” said Ronan, wiping a tear from his eye, “that’ll be wee Darryl now, I’m sure.”

He had barely disappeared from sight when a small African American wizard zipped into the room, a huge grin on his face.  “Wizard study party!” yelled Darryl, with his particular brand of infectious joy, as he jumped boisterously onto the couch.  “Alright!”

Nita grinned back at him, all grumpiness wiped away.  “Hiya, Darryl!  Thanks for joining us!  Whatcha bring to work on?”

Darryl fished his WizPod out of his pocket.  He smiled at Ronan.  “I’m helping my older Cousin here with some of the gravity subroutines on his simulation.  And also coming up with a few ‘minigames’ of my own.”  He got a mischievous look in his eye.

Ronan rolled his eyes.  “Oh no,” he groaned.  “The ‘laser tag’ thing?  Darryl, these games are about preparing for real-life combat scenarios!  Serious stuff, like!”

“And for making friends, Ro!”  Darryl beamed as he scrolled through the WizPod.  “And having fun, if you can still remember what _that’s_ like, old man!”  He popped a bright green, chewy-looking pendant into his mouth and began to focus intently on his wizardly apps.

Ronan shook his head.  “‘Old man’.  Can’t get any respect, these days,” he lamented.  “The manners of this generation…” he wandered off.

Darryl paused to look around at Nita, Kit, and Dairine’s work.  “It looks like you guys are working on a lot of different stuff, though,” he observed.  “I guess that makes sense… we all have different specialties… but aren’t we supposed to be helping each other out?  I mean, that’s what you do at a study party, right?”

Kit nodded.  “We’ll definitely be helping each other out wherever we can,” he said.  “But sometimes, even if you aren’t directly advising someone, it can be nice to work in the same space.  One of the purposes of a study party is to make work less stressful by making it less lonely.”

“And to share food,” said Ronan, walking back in.  He was carrying an armful of gummy snack packets, which he started handing out to Kit and Darryl.

“ _I_ bought those for us, thanks,” said Dairine, sounding miffed.  “I don’t remember saying _you_ could hand them out.”

Ronan smiled crookedly at her.  “All is done for each, little one,” he chided.

“Oh, I’ve got something in mind for one of the all that would be done for each!”  Dairine cracked her tiny knuckles in a way that somehow managed to be extremely menacing, despite her size.

That’s when the doorbell rang a third time.

Darryl looked around at the rest of the group.  “We’re all here, right?  Nita, is that your dad?”

Nita shook her head.  “He really shouldn’t be home yet.  Hope nothing’s wrong…”  She headed for the door.

“Hey, Neets!  Sorry I’m late!” came an energetic, high-pitched voice.

Kit groaned.  “Oh _no_.  Who invited _her_?  I never even told her about this!”

Kit’s older sister, Carmela, sauntered into the room, followed by Nita.  She was wearing a mini dress from the Crossings that changed colors whenever she moved and carrying a backpack over one shoulder.  “ _¡Hola, mis brujos!_ ” she said excitedly.  Then she turned to Ronan and actually blew him a kiss.  “And hello again, _Ronan!_ ”

Ronan closed his eyes.  “Powers that Be on a pinhead,” he muttered.  “What did I ever do to deserve this?”

Nita and Kit glanced at each other, perplexed.  When it came to Carmela and Ronan, it was often difficult to tell how much of any given interaction was sincere, how much was flirting, and how much was total irony.

Kit glared at Carmela.  “Go away, ‘Mela,” he said.  “This is a _wizard_ study party.  You’re not _allowed_.”

“ _Wow_ , Kit!  So _rude_!  After all the times I’ve saved your life!”  Carmela breezed past where Kit was sitting on the floor and reached down to roughly tussle his hair.  He scowled and pushed her hand away.

“What are you even going to do here?” Kit asked her, as she plopped down on the couch next to Darryl.  “It’s not like you have any spells to debug.”

Carmela _tsked_ and waggled one finger at him.  “I, _Cariño_ , am obviously going to be serving as the tutor for this session!”

This remark was met with puzzled silence on the part of all the wizards in the room.

“‘Mela,” Nita ventured hesitantly, “there’s no doubt that you are really skilled with the Speech.  But there are a lot of aspects to wizardry besides the language that we’re struggling with—the diagrams and equations and so forth-”

“Aww, Neets, you’re too nice to be a hard science type!” crowed Carmela, as she swung her backpack forward onto her lap.  “That’s okay; you don’t need to spare my feelings!  I know that I can’t do spell work—not that I need to”—she gave her hair a glamorous toss—“so that’s why I brought… _this!_ ”  She pulled a large, hardcover book out of her backpack and held it out for the wizards to examine.

They all leaned in to read the cover.  It said:

The

(Solutions)

Manual*

G.H. Lemaître, E.P. Hubble

A Cosmic CheggTM Production

_*This guide is unofficial and not endorsed by the Powers that Be._

Kit was dumbfounded.  “‘ _Solutions Manual’?_   Since _when_?  Carmela, where did you _find_ this?”

“At the Crossings, of course!” piped Carmela.  “Well, more in the little side shops than in the main area itself…”

Both Nita and Kit reacted to this.  “‘Mela,” said Nita with some alarm, “those places can be really shady…”

“I shouldn’t have to keep my _older sister_ out of trouble!” moaned Kit.

“That’s right,” Carmela said sharply, “you _shouldn’t_.  So stop trying to be the wizard police for once, Kit!  Sheesh!  And there’s no need to worry, Nita,” she added, “I go there all the time.  It’s fine if you know which places to avoid…”  She turned to one of the first pages in the book.  “Some of this stuff looks really useful…  Like this!  Neets, get over here!  Weren’t you trying to figure out some timey-wimey shenanigans?”

“I guess that’s one way to put it,” said Nita, walking over to look at the page that Carmela was reading.

“So, it says here,” said Carmela, narrating for the benefit of the rest of the wizards, “’For historical anomalies, temporal misalignments, and matters of inter-universal tariff law, verbalize the following’— _ooh_ , is this a _spell_?”—she squinted at the characters that followed—“‘krest-oh-man-see, krest-oh-man-see, krest-oh-man-see’?”

The universe did not quiet down.  The air did not ring with the note ears sing in silence (but much louder).  And there was not even the slightest perturbation of the air.

But suddenly, there was a seventh person, standing in the middle of the room.

Everyone froze at the sight of the man who had appeared out of nothing.  He was wearing a dazzling blue and green silk dressing gown over a ruffled white shirt and crisply-ironed black pants and had the most neatly slicked-back black hair that any of them had ever seen.  For his part, he looked just as surprised to see them.  For a moment he looked back at them in bewilderment, one hand holding a cookie halfway to his mouth, another holding the handle of a teacup out in front of him.

Ronan was the first to react.  “Fff— FAIRest and fallen,” he stuttered out, jumping into a battle stance, “greeting and defiance to you—”

“Wait, Ronan,” said Nita, “I’m not sure…”

“Well, what’re _you_ seeing?” asked Kit.  “Because _I’m_ seeing a tall, handsome, expensively-dressed man who just appeared without warning!  Looks like our old friend to me!”  He pulled his orb weapon out of his claudication and crouched expectantly.

“Doesn’t _feel_ the same, though…” said Darryl, who was rocking himself gently back and forth on the couch.  “Hey, guy, you wouldn’t happen to be the Lone Power, would you?”  He smiled, and the tension in the room instantaneously dropped several notches.

The man cleared his throat.  He stooped down to place the teacup and cookie on the coffee table, then set to work brushing off his perfectly clean shoulders, straightening his perfectly straight collar, and slicking back his impeccably-styled hair.  Then he trained a piercing look at each one of the room’s fellow occupants.

“I am Christopher Chant, current Chrestomanci,” he announced in a lofty British accent.  “Now… where am I?  And why am I here?”

Nita, Kit, Dairine, Ronan, and Darryl all turned to look at Carmela.

Coolly, as if this happened to her every day, Carmela lifted her chin and said, “You’re on Long Island.  As to why you’re here—We have some spelling problems.  What’s a Chrestomanci?”

“ _The_ Chrestomanci,” replied Christopher Chant.  “I’m a very powerful enchanter, tasked with policing the Related Worlds.”

This was met with a lot of blank stares, especially from the wizards in the room, who were doubtlessly silently debating among themselves what “enchanter” and “Related Worlds” could possibly refer to.  But Carmela, whose specialty was language and communication, picked up on the meaning right away.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in recognition.  “The local sheaf of universes!  So does that mean that you regulate several dimensions?  _Are you one of the Powers?_ ”

Now it was Chrestomanci’s turn to look confused.  “Powers?” he asked.  “I’m a government official from Series Twelve.  My job is to make sure that no one misuses magic, and that all the various Series remain properly aligned in space and time.  I also lead the team that shuts down smuggling operations between Series, which are a constant issue.”

“Space and time!” squealed Carmela.  She turned to Nita, clearly thrilled.  “See, Neets, this could be exactly what you needed!  Excuse me, Mister Chrestomanci,” she said, addressing the man once more, “do you think you could help my friend with her temporal confusion?  She’s trying to get a handle on the arrangement of several events.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, pulling out a little gold notebook and pencil.  “First, though—which world is this?”

The kids all looked at each other rather helplessly.  “Ours?” said Nita, who then flushed with embarrassment.  No one had ever asked her to name her universe before.

“Right.”  The man sighed.  “Which country is the most powerful here?”

Kit shrugged.  “On the Earth?  I’d say, currently, America?”

Ronan scoffed.  “Depends on what you consider ‘powerful’, Mars boy.”

“Okay,” said the Chrestomanci.  “And who is prime minister of ‘America’?”

Darryl chuckled.  “We don’t have a prime minister!” he said.  “We have a president!”

The man nodded and scribbled away in his notebook.  “How many world wars have you had?” he asked, looking up again.

Dairine rolled her eyes.  “This is going to be really tedious, isn’t it,” she griped.

“Oh!  I’ll get us some more snacks!” said Darryl.  He flickered.  Rustling noises came from the kitchen, before a copy of Darryl walked back into the living room carrying another armload of the snack packs.  His copy dumped the packs into the middle of the coffee table, straightened up, and vanished without disturbing the air at all.

Christopher Chant paused in his notetaking to stare at Darryl in amazement.  “Impossible,” he whispered.

Darryl turned his face away from Christopher’s insistent gaze, looking distinctly uncomfortable.  “I have a bilocation trick,” he explained.

The Chrestomanci shook his head.  “That immense power,” he mused, “could it be that you’re-”

A jolt of panic spread around the room.

“No!” yelled Kit.

“STOP!” shrieked Nita.

“—a _nine-lived enchanter_?” finished the Chrestomanci.

There was a dumbfounded silence at that, during which Spot cheerfully played an mp3 of crickets chirping.

“Like,” Nita said hesitantly once she’d gotten her breath back, “a feline wizard?  _They_ have nine lives.”

“No, no,” said Christopher, still clearly stunned by his discovery.  “A nine-lived _enchanter_.  I’m one.  They are exceedingly rare.  All Chrestomancis need to be nine-lived enchanters to do their jobs.  I’ve been looking for my replacement for a long time,” he said quietly to Darryl.  “Could it be that you’re it?”

Darryl looked at Nita uncertainly.  “I’m just a regular wizard,” he said slowly.  “As far as I know, I have my bilocation trick, and that’s it.”  Nita smiled back at him reassuringly without either confirming or denying his statement.

“Really?” asked Christopher.  “Have you ever gone wandering anywhere unusual?  Have you been to the Place Between Worlds?”

“‘The Place Between Worlds’?” echoed Ronan.  “You mean that place Kit used to explore with-” he broke off, seeing Kit lower his eyes.  “You mean the Darkness between universes?”

“It usually looks dark,” replied the Chrestomanci, “to people who don’t have the power to navigate it correctly.  And I am certainly sensing a lot of power from you,” he said to Darryl.  “Nine-lived enchanter or not, your situation could use some investigation.  Sorry,” he said then, “I didn’t get your name.”

“I’m Darryl McAllister,” Darryl said warily, still not quite meeting Chrestomanci’s inquisitive eyes.

“Well, Darryl,” said Christopher brightly, “how would you like to come live in my castle for a few years?”

This was met with some startled expressions and raised eyebrows.

“I…” Darryl swallowed.  “I don’t think my parents will let me do that right now.”

“And anyway,” Nita interjected, looking very concerned, “we need him here.  To fight the Lone Power.”

Darryl smiled shyly.  “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t really say I’m _that_ important…”

“Every wizard is important,” Kit assured him.

“And nonwizard,” added Carmela.  “Don’t leave out the adjunct talents!”

Kit twitched.  “This whole scenario is _your fault_ , ‘Mela!”

“What, he hasn’t done anything bad!” Carmela shot back.  Then she seemed to become a little anxious.  “Yet.  And anyway, he’s here to help!  We’re already working on Nita’s timeline!”

“And that’s been going _so_ well,” said Dairine scornfully.

“Well, _anyway_ ,” said Carmela, “I found the book and said the words, and now he’s _here_.  Which means he must be the answer we need.”

Nita watched the Chrestomanci, who was currently taking notes on the various picture frames hanging on the living room walls and pausing every few minutes to flatten out a non-existent crease in his left cuff.  She sighed.  “If he’s the answer-”

“-then what’s the question?” chorused the rest of the wizards, reading her mind.  She turned to fix them with a disapproving look.

Ronan grinned sardonically.  “The eternal cry of all wizards, everywhere.”

“Did somebody say _everywhere_?” asked the Transcendent Pig.

Everyone craned their necks toward the corner next to the TV, where the physical manifestation of the universe’s innate sense of humor had been the entire time.

“Wha- You again!” exclaimed Kit in the Speech.  And, “Just how many people are going to crash this party, anyway?”

The pig raised its eyebrows and shook its head in disbelief.  “’You’.  He addresses the Transcendent Pig with a singular, informal, present-grounded ‘you’.  What am I telling you about the _pronouns_.”

Kit frowned.  “You mean, what _did_ you tell me abou- _oh_.  …That’s confusing.”

“Speaking of confusing,” said Chao, trotting up to Chrestomanci.  “Mind if we confer on a vexing temporal matter?”

“Certainly,” said Chrestomanci, looking rather vexed himself.  “What seems to be the issue?”

“It’s a re-working,” said the Transcendent Pig.  “It has to do with a time lag relative to our parent universe.  Apparently, time tends to pass much faster over there.”  It sat down on its haunches.  “Anyway, long story short, we’ve been going through an overhaul to get us up to speed on certain matters.”  It let out a frustrated snort.  “Which is all very good and necessary, of course, but we’ve had some bleeding together of the two continua, which is causing a bit of confusion.  Especially for our emerging non-linear thinkers.”  It gave Nita a somewhat pitying look.  “Anyway, I’m told you’re something of a specialist in these matters.”

Chrestomanci smiled.  “Tell me everything,” he said, “and I will do what I can.”

Chao let out a brief squeal of amusement.  “Oh, no human really wants to know _everything_.  But I can tell you what you need to know for this particular job.  Walk and talk?”  It gestured toward the front door and started away.

“After you,” said Christopher Chant.  He made to follow.

“Keep working on that vocabulary, punk!” called the Transcendent Pig as they left.

The six original occupants of Nita’s living room spent a few moments blinking at each other in utter confusion.

“Well,” said Kit, breaking the silence.  “ _That_ happened.  Oh!”  He reached over and helpfully drew an arrow on Nita’s timeline pointing to the present day, then labelled it, “THAT.”

“Gee.  Thanks, Kit.”  Nita blew a strand of hair out of her face.  “Never mind the timeline.  I give up.  I might as well work on ‘flickering subtly in and out of existence’, for all it’s worth.”

“Oh!” said Darryl brightly.  “I think I could teach you that!”  He thought for a moment.  “But first, you would need to master bilocation…”

Nita sighed once more.  “That’s okay, Darryl,” she said.  “I’ll take a break from doing visionary stuff for now.  Let me see what you guys are working on…”

She shuffled in between Carmela and Darryl on the sofa, and the study party resumed.


End file.
